


stay the course

by theundiagnosable



Series: not baseball [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Flirting, M/M, a prequel but you can read it as a standalone, ft. long conversations; being scared to make a move; mild ironic foreshadowing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theundiagnosable/pseuds/theundiagnosable
Summary: Kyle’s not religious about anything except hockey, but he’s fairly certain he’s going to hell for having the kind of thoughts he regularly has about William Nylander.
Relationships: Kyle Dubas/William Nylander
Series: not baseball [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669720
Comments: 56
Kudos: 298





	stay the course

**Author's Note:**

> \- fuuuuuck me this was supposed to be like 2k!!!! i hate age difference pairings on principle!!!! mom come pick me up i'm scared!!!

The end of the story starts when William shows up at the Marlies game.

It’s not the first time he’s done it. Kyle likes the company. His specifically.

It’s the third game of a three-in-three for both teams, and both teams are playing like it, is how things start; William comments as much, and it reminds Kyle of this article he read, about-

“-the idea of load management and how it’s backed up by virtually every sports scientist, but for some reason a lot of professional sports has this stupid macho idea where they’re reluctant to actually listen to the people who know what they’re talking about,” he explains, grabbing for his phone. “I’ll send it to you, it was really good.”

“It sounds sciencey,” William complains, but only half-heartedly, and once Kyle hits send and his phone buzzes, he opens the attachment right up.

“You don’t have to read it right now,” Kyle says, because it’s the third period of a tied game, if not a particularly artfully played one, and he really didn’t mean this to be a now kind of thing.

“Shh,” William says, without taking his eyes off the screen.

So Kyle leaves him to read, leans forward onto the little table and focuses on his team’s game. Or- tries to.

Slowly, so slowly Kyle barely notices it happening, William’s leaning closer into his space. Down on the ice, the teams are shoving each other around in the corner as the refs swarm to break them up.

Their arms bump together. Kyle moves his arm, trying to give William room.

Their arms bump together again.

Kyle glances over at William, who’s still looking innocently at his phone, scrolling as he reads; he doesn’t even look up as he leans his head on Kyle’s arm, using him as a pillow.

He’s been doing this more and more, bolder and bolder, recently, just casually putting himself into Kyle’s space and making himself comfortable there with precisely zero regard for the fact that Kyle’s his former and – if Kyle gets his way, and he usually manages to – future general manager.

Kyle is coping.

That doesn’t sound especially impressive, but it is, in Kyle’s opinion, because William is pretty like some sort of woodland creature, or the kind of creature woodland creatures love, and the weight of him against Kyle’s side is going to be burned right into Kyle’s memory, maybe right into his skin itself, a brand searing right through the knit of his sweater and the dress shirt under it, William Nylander Was Here. Which is maybe William’s whole point. Which-

Kyle moves away, just a couple of inches. This time, William doesn’t follow.

“So?” Kyle asks, when the clock is ticking down the last five seconds and William finally sets down his phone.

“Hm,” William says, then, lightly, “I hated it.”

Kyle blinks, taken aback. “What?”

William shrugs. “No player would sit out games if they don’t have to,” he says, matter-of-fact. “It was wrong and I hated it.” His eyes are bright, even as he keeps a straight face – he enjoys this. Bickering. Kyle does too. Not that he’ll admit it out loud.

“You can hate it if you want, but it’s not wrong, it’s science,” Kyle says, settling easy into defending his point. “Like, it’s all data-driven, not being wrong is literally the point.”

“Does it matter if it’s not wrong if no one will ever listen to it?” William asks, tilting his head and batting his eyelashes, which is a low blow, frankly, and one that Kyle is proud of himself for not acknowledging.

“That’s-” Kyle says, then cuts himself off, because he doesn’t think William was trying to make a point about practicality versus theory, but he made a good one anyways. Also- the eyelashes. Damn it.

“Interesting,” Kyle finishes, weakly and ages too late. “That’s wrong, but interesting.”

“You can explain it to me when you’re buying me coffee,” William says. Just like that.

Kyle raises his eyebrows. “Oh, am I buying you coffee?”

“Yes, so you can explain me your wrong data,” William says, and he says it as nonchalantly as ever, like he’s doing Kyle a favour by inviting himself for coffee, except Kyle knows him, by now, has been knowing him in increments for nearly two years, and that means that he can hear the hint of hope in William’s voice, can see the way he’s watching Kyle intently, even eagerly.

Kyle watches the players streaming off the ice down below them. He was planning to curl up in his office and figure out a plan of attack for his meeting tomorrow. It would be infinitely safer to curl up in his office and figure out a plan of attack for his meeting tomorrow.

“Let me get my coat,” he says, and William smiles.

\---

Kyle’s not religious about anything except hockey, but he’s fairly certain he’s going to hell for having the kind of thoughts he regularly has about William Nylander about a nineteen year-old.

That’s probably reductive.

The thing between them, whatever it is – Kyle’s past the point of denying its existence, been there, tried that, failed miserably – isn’t a question of Kyle hitting twenty-nine and deciding that his new type is nineteen year-old hockey prodigies. It would be easier if that was the extent of it, just Kyle getting inconveniently sexually frustrated over an objectively flawless-looking athlete in fantastic physical shape with distractingly soft-looking boyband hair. That would be normal. Manageable.

Like Kyle said, though: Reductive.

The reality of the situation, the one where Will has somehow managed to become someone Kyle considers a real friend, someone who sends him daily selfies that Kyle doesn’t respond to or responds to with unrelated links to whatever he’s reading on a given day, someone who can improve Kyle’s day and week just by walking into a room and meeting his eyes and smiling like no one exists except the two of them and Kyle just knows that William’s going to have some kind of surprisingly cutting observation of it all later-

That reality is significantly less manageable. Worse because Kyle’s not an idiot: he’s aware that William’s nursing a crush on him and has been since they both arrived with the organization. Kyle figured it was the novelty at first, of someone in management talking to him like a person, except the novelty hasn’t worn off, and William still looks at Kyle like he’s waiting for something, expectant. More so recently.

He would kiss Kyle back, if Kyle kissed him.

Kyle wishes he wasn’t aware of that fact.

He thinks-

Sometimes, a lot of the time, an embarrassing amount of the time, Kyle thinks about what would happen if things were different, if no one cared about what they did or if he had a job that didn’t involve alternating between being talked to like he’s a child by the invariably old and straight hockey men he’s trying to take a job from and feeling approximately eighty years old when he tries to interact with normal, non-hockey people.

Maybe that’s the issue. Kyle’s perception of normal is irreparably fucked up by the pocket universe that is professional hockey and its forty year-olds playing on a team with teenagers and twenty-nine year-olds trying to manage fifty-something year old coaches. Maybe, within the confines of that pocket universe, in that one specific context, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for Kyle to think the things he thinks about William Nylander, maybe even to act on them, the way William is clearly angling for. Maybe…

Maybe Kyle’s going to spend another two years justifying this to himself and not letting himself act on it and being entirely wrapped around William’s finger and end up in hell anyways.

There’s nothing particularly damning about the coffee shop where they go after the game, tonight. It’s kind of high-end for Kyle’s tastes – William’s suggestion, an address texted to Kyle and programmed into his car’s GPS – but the barista makes him a normal coffee with milk and sugar without trying to make it something pretentious, and whatever playlist they have over the speakers is fairly unobtrusive, which are both points in its favour.

It’s not hard to find seats: half the tables are empty at this time of night, the staff wiping down the display case with the desserts maybe a little hopefully, as the clock ticks toward midnight.

“Thank you,” William says, when Kyle picks his way over to the table and sets down his coffee and William’s matcha latte.

“Do you still have to thank me if I didn’t have a choice?” Kyle asks, teasing.

“I’ll get them next time,” William says, waving a hand, all dismissive. There’s something almost regal about some of his gestures, sometimes, like he’s used to being waited on. Kyle’s Gramma would hate him. It’s not as irritating as it should be.

Kyle unwinds his scarf and tosses it over the back of his chair with his coat; runs a hand through his hair, just quick, to try to get rid of the snow that’s melting there. It’s still coming down thick outside, almost-obscuring everything outside the big shop window, reducing it to glimpses of faces or car headlights through sheets of white.

“Traffic’s going to be hell by morning, it’s supposed to keep coming down all night,” Kyle says, conversational.

William smiles like Kyle said something funny. “Canadians talk about the weather more than anyone else in the whole world.”

“Come on, the weather’s regularly trying to kill us, I think it merits talking about,” Kyle protests, out of some mostly-dormant Canadian pride.

“Do the Leafs people know how dramatic you are, Kyle?” William asks, mildly enough that Kyle knows he’s being an asshole on purpose.

Kyle rolls his eyes, tries to fight back a smile. “What do you talk about in Sweden, then, if not the weather?”

“Everything,” William says, all big eyes, serious as anything. “We say hi and go right to sharing our biggest secrets.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes.” He nods. “So you can tell me one of yours, now.” No shame at all. Kyle’s jealous of him.

“Hm,” Kyle says, stirring at his coffee and thinking of a good answer. He picks his words carefully, around William, selecting the ones he knows will get the reaction he wants. It’s fun trying to guess. He’s better at it than he used to be.

“Okay, how’s this,” he says. “I borrowed ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ from the library back home three years ago and forgot about it for like, a few months, and by then the fines were too much, so I just kept it and I haven’t gone back since.”

“You stole a library book?” William laughs, delighted, and Kyle’s heart soars with something like pride. He can’t help but laugh too – William’s laugh is utterly contagious, this bubbly, vaguely dorky kind of sound.

“Not on purpose!” Kyle protests, no heat behind it.

“Do you think they have, um, wanted posters of you in the library now?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Kyle plays along. “It’s fine, I got a Toronto library card when I moved here.”

“Happy ending,” William says.

“It would seem that way, so far,” Kyle agrees, and they exchange smiles, mutual satisfaction at the uselessness of this conversation. It’s a certain kind of intimacy, the kind that can only be earned, to talk about nothing with someone. “Now you have to confess an equally terrible crime, I think those are the rules.”

William uses a finger to scoop up a dollop of foam from his latte, and sucks at it thoughtfully. Kyle Does Not Fixate.

“I never stole anything,” William says. “And I don’t read unless it’s something you send me.”

Kyle ducks his head to hide a smile.

“I’ll give you a general secret instead,” William decides, finally. “There was one day when I didn’t want to play hockey anymore.” His foot touches Kyle’s under the table, just for a second. There are people around, not a lot of them, but enough.

“Just one day, ever?” Kyle asks.

“Yes,” William says, prim. “Alex got born and I told my dad I wanted to be a mom instead.”

“Oh,” Kyle says, fonder than he was expected to be, for a nothing conversation like this. “That’s grossly sweet.”

“I didn’t really know how having babies worked, I guess,” William shrugs. “Anyways, then Alex started pooping and crying so I decided to go back to hockey.” Easy peasy.

“And you never changed your mind again?” Kyle asks, even though he already suspects he knows the answer. The NHL doesn’t leave room for doubt.

“Never,” William says, then turns it back on Kyle, curious. “Did you ever think about doing something not hockey?”

“No,” Kyle doesn’t have to think about his answer. “Never.”

“Not even one day?”

“Never,” Kyle says, and their knees brush, this time, as he shifts to sit up straighter.

“What if you were a player instead of a manager?” William asks eyes lighting up the way they do when he thinks of something funny. “What if you were on my team with me?”

“I’d question the credentials of any coach who played me more than five minutes a game,” Kyle says, frank, even as he’s grinning. “Unless we were trying to tank, maybe.”

William’s eyes are crinkled over the rim of his mug as he laughs. “When did you stop playing?”

“I was fourteen,” Kyle says; then, pre-empting the inevitable follow-up question, “I got hurt. That’s not- It’s not an excuse, I wasn’t good enough to ever play pro. I hate when people say that, ‘I could’ve got drafted if I hadn’t hurt my shoulder’. It’s stupid.”

“You hurt your shoulder?” William asks.

“My head,” Kyle says. “A few times.”

“Probably good,” William says, which is, uh, certainly a Take, even for him, but he continues, “You’re too smart to be a player.”

Kyle scoffs, mollified in spite of himself. “I’m not that smart.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not doing the false modesty thing, here,” Kyle says, taking a swig of his coffee and shaking his head. “By hockey standards, sure, I’m smart, but that’s just because the NHL runs on nepotism and conventional wisdom.”

William leans his chin in his hands, elbow on the table. “What’s nepotism?”

“When you only get where you are because of family.”

William looks like he’s processing that, his brows knitting together. “Doesn’t that make you more smart?” he asks. “Like, you’re smart enough to do a career where you’re ten times smarter than everyone else instead of just another smart person?”

Kyle chews his lip, conceding the point. “That’s not why I chose hockey, though.”

“Why?”

Kyle shrugs. He was at the rink with his grandfather every day of his childhood. Somehow more once he hit his teens. He’d go at night, sometimes, once he got enough responsibilities to have a key, and just sit there on the bench and breathe in the smell of the ice. He didn’t have too many friends, as a teenager. Probably related.

“It’s in my blood,” is what he says, instead of all that, and then he laughs at himself, wry. “So I guess I’m just more hockey nepotism, but in denial.”

“Me too,” William agrees readily. “Not in denial, though.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t do that.”

“I don’t think it’s a choice, Will, generally,” Kyle says, bemused, watching William take a sip of his latte. Warm drinks shouldn’t be green, Kyle’s pretty sure. He doesn’t know what to do with the fact that he’s endeared by it instead of grossed out. He’d sit and talk with William and watch him drink artisanal green tea lattes for days straight, if he could.

“Even if it was,” William says, very sagely, oblivious to Kyle’s matcha latte-related crisis. “I see a lot. I’m good at knowing stuff that’s true.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” William nods. “ _Like_ , I bet I can make you do your fidgety thing.”

“I don’t have a fidgety thing,” Kyle says.

“You do,” William informs him, then, casual as anything, “See, I know that, and I know how you wouldn’t let any other player make you bring them for coffee, or tell them what you tell me, or look at them like you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”

“I-” Kyle blinks, stunned right out of words, and fixes his glasses, shifting in his seat.

William beams. “Fidgeting, I told you,” he says, triumphantly, then, enough like an afterthought that it has to be entirely deliberate, “Don’t worry, I look too.”

So-

There it is, then.

Kyle figured William had some kind of endgame in mind, when he showed up at Ricoh. He’s not the type to act aimlessly, no matter how much he likes people to think so. Still, this is brazen, even for him, because he’s aware of the laundry list of reasons why their thing is a thing they don’t talk about and here he is anyways, laying it right there between them on a pointless Wednesday night in mid-February, knowing Kyle wouldn’t be expecting it.

“You push, so much,” Kyle says, finally. Even manages to sound normal as he says it.

“You let me,” William counters, without dropping Kyle’s gaze.

This time, when their knees touch, Kyle doesn’t move back. He wants- fuck, he doesn’t know. Everything. Too much.

Kyle exhales, wary. Can’t look away, and it’s like the rest of the coffee shop around them isn’t even there, white noise and nothing but that. They’ve gotten very good, the last year and a bit, at not saying things, and he doesn’t know what to do with Will breaking the unspoken standoff.

Will tucks his hair back behind his ear, the closest he’s come to looking abashed. “I like teasing you,” he says.

“I’ve noticed,” Kyle says, and William’s leg slides in between Kyle’s ankles.

“Kyle,” William says. Asks.

Kyle’s chair screeches on the floor as he stands up, abrupt.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Kyle asks, out of breath for no good reason, none at all.

\---

If William’s disappointed by the fact that they head in the opposite direction from Kyle’s car, he doesn’t show it, just trudges along with Kyle even though the sidewalk is quickly being buried on either side with piles of snow and the blizzard that the news has been talking about is coming in full force.

There aren’t as many people out as Kyle would like, which means he doesn’t have a lot of places to look that aren’t at William, which means he gets a good long look at the fact that William is wearing mittens, _mittens_ , because of course he’d choose the single most impractical form of keeping his hands warm in winter, because who needs multiple functional digits when you have fashion, right? Kyle hates mittens, conceptually. Especially on adults. Just unnecessary on every level.

William’s mittens are so fucking cute. The mittens are cute and so is William, and the combination of the two is just making Kyle want to step right out in front of the buses and streetcars ploughing past them. He doesn’t even- like, cuteness is so decidedly not Kyle’s thing. It’s contrived, usually, and annoying, and Kyle doesn’t have a lot of patience for it, except now when it’s apparently something that makes him feel all fluttery and soft inside and also like he wants to get William on the nearest horizontal surface and spend approximately twenty-four consecutive hours studying every single inch of his body until he has him mapped out and memorized in his entirety.

Fucking _mittens._

It’s only a little more than a five minute walk. Closer to ten, with the sidewalks loaded up with snow, but Kyle doesn’t mind the walk, with William chattering happily the whole way, only getting a few looks from passersby, with the weather a good enough deterrent to prevent anyone stopping for a picture.

They stop at an intersection, waiting for the crossing signal to appear, and while they wait, William steps in close to Kyle so their arms are pressed together, his nose pressed into the shoulder of Kyle’s coat. Kyle wants to wrap him up in a hug.

“Are you cold?” he asks instead. He doesn’t move to put space between them.

“I spend every day in a room full of ice,” William says, sidestepping the question and not looking even remotely guilty about it, the way he tends to do. To not do. Both. “Are you cold?”

“I spend every day in a room full of ice wearing only a suit jacket,” Kyle points out. The light changes, and he nods ahead of them. “It’s just a bit further.”

His hand lands on William’s back, just for a moment, to usher him forward, before he pulls back, fast. William shoots him this look, like _really_ , but walks where Kyle’s guiding him, toward the flickering OPEN sign a few doors down.

“Here,” Kyle says, and holds the door so William can walk in ahead of him out of the snow. He follows him in, kicking the snow off of his shoes onto the worn-out mat while William tugs off his mittens one at a time and looks around, taking the place in. Kyle gets this irrational surge of protectiveness, watching that – ‘dive bar’ would probably be a generous description of this place, but he’s been coming here since he’s been in the city, and he’s fond of it, the old wood-paneled bar and wall-to-wall shelves cluttered full of books and pictures and random old memorabilia, signed baseballs and the like. Things that meant something to someone, enough to be displayed.

Kyle raises a hand to greet the bartender, Dani, and gets a nod in return. It’s late on a weeknight, and this is decidedly not the hip place to be – the only other group of people in the bar is a group of old men, clustered around the dartboard and quiet except for the occasional burst of laughter.

“C’mon,” Kyle nudges William toward the other side of the place, toward the booth where he usually sits. It’s got a good view of the TV by the bar, and the late game is on, the way it usually is.

“Who are we cheering for?” William asks, following Kyle’s gaze to the hockey. Always hockey.

“Kings,” Kyle says. He takes off his sweater as well as his coat – it’s always warm in here – and pretends not to notice William staring at his arms as he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. “I traded for their backup when he was in the O.”

William slides into the opposite side of the booth from Kyle. “Is he good?”

“I traded for him,” Kyle says, answer enough.

Dani brings over two gin and tonics, then looks at William pointedly. Just in case Kyle was thinking of not hating himself for a second, there.

“I’m twenty,” William says, but takes out his ID obediently, and Dani glances at it, doesn’t call him out on the lie, either figuring nineteen and a few months is good enough or maybe just bad at math.

They’re quiet as she leaves, and after. Kyle looks down at his drink while William puts his ID in his wallet and his wallet in his coat pocket.

“Don’t,” William says. He doesn’t have to say what he’s talking about.

“Wasn’t going to,” Kyle says.

“You looked tragic.”

“Hey, thanks, Will,” Kyle says, dry, and finally looks up to find William looking back. There’s a whole conversation in that look, and when it’s done, William’s the one who looks down.

Up on the screen behind him, the Kings score.

“You’d like me better if I was older,” William says.

“Who says I like you?” Kyle shoots back automatically, and William smiles, just a tiny one, like he knows Kyle’s deflecting.

“You’d like me better if I was older,” he repeats – he’s irritatingly hard to derail, more than anyone else Kyle knows – then continues, a little bit wryly, “So that should make you feel better about what a bad person you are. Even with the library book stealing.”

“Ha, ha,” Kyle says while William grins at him, a real grin now, and tosses back half of his drink like a shot. He doesn’t even wince. Kyle would not have taken him for a gin guy. Kyle needs to stop assuming he knows a single goddamn thing about who William Nylander is.

“She just brought my usual,” Kyle says anyways. “If you’d prefer something else-”

“This is good,” William says. polite. “Thank you.”

Kyle wants to know every goddamn thing about who William Nylander is.

He sips at his drink – he has taste, thank you very much – and watches the Sharks’ powerplay fizzle to nothing. Keeps one eye on William, who’s looking at the nearest display shelf, this autographed black and white photo that includes precisely no one recognizable. He draws a skate in the dust on the glass, then looks back at Kyle.

“Now I know you need to get promoted to the Leafs with me,” he says, archly. “The Marlies must not be paying you very much, if you drink at places like this.”

Kyle kicks him under the table, lightly. “I like places like this,” he says, then, because that’s not entirely true, “This place.”

“Why?”

Kyle shrugs. “Feels like it has a story,” he says. “I mean, it’s a mess, obviously, but there’s enough stuff happening that my stuff, in my head, feels less overwhelming. Or maybe- I don’t know. Appropriate? Less noticeable, at least.”

He’s waxing poetic again. He’s waxing poetic at the hockey player he has embarrassing feelings about, about an embarrassing shitty bar.

Kyle coughs, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

William doesn’t acknowledge the apology, just keeps looking at Kyle. He has a way of looking that feels weighty, like he’s analyzing you and doesn’t particularly care if you know it. Kyle’s supposed to be the one who looks at people like that.

“Do you bring lots of people here?” William asks, apropos of nothing.

“No,” Kyle says, honest before it occurs to him to lie. “Not at all.”

William doesn’t drop his gaze, this time. Just asks, like he already knows the answer, “How many?”

“Will,” Kyle says, helpless, a warning that’s as good as an answer.

For the first time in a long time, the look on William’s face isn’t one that he can read.

“Just me,” William says.

Kyle’s grip tightens on his glass. He wants to- god, he _wants_. He wants, he wants, he wants.

“Just you,” he says. Quiet as anything.

William glances across the bar at the other group; then, evidently satisfied that they’re sufficiently focused on the dartboard, stands up, walks around the table, and slides into Kyle’s side of the booth. Without speaking, he moves Kyle’s discarded sweater and coat out of the way, lifts Kyle’s arm and scoots in close, nestling into Kyle’s side, then tugs Kyle’s arm back down around his shoulders. Kyle lets himself be put where William wants him, then doesn’t do a single other thing. Can’t.

And he can’t possibly be comfortable to lean on right now, tense and holding his breath and mostly unable to move a muscle, but William doesn’t complain; doesn’t move away, either, even when the darts players leave and they’re the only ones left, and that’s how they watch their second game of the night, folded together in the corner of the bar, not saying anything at all.

\---

Kyle becomes intimately familiar with the intricacies of how the back of William’s mittens feel brushing up against the back of his own bare knuckles, on the trek back to their cars. He feels it, every minute detail of every touch, and doesn’t move to make more room between them even as he can feel himself getting frostbitten, his gloves sitting stubborn and useless back in his glovebox.

The streets are quieter than they were before, the combination of it being nearly two AM in a boring part of town and of any noise being muffled the way it is after a new snow. During, technically – it’s still coming down, maybe a little slower than before, in these thick, powdery flakes that look soft to the touch.

The silence between them doesn’t feel like nerves, now. It feels like- waiting. Anticipation, maybe. Like the end of a first date, except for the fact that most first dates don’t go for going on eight hours and two hockey games and about a dozen moral crises. Except for the fact that this wasn’t a date.

“This is my car,” Kyle says, reluctantly, once they get to where he parked. He reaches into his pocket for his keys, ends up just leaving his hands there, because that seems like the safest option. “Can I walk you to yours, or-”

William shakes his head. “It’s just around the corner.” His cheeks are red with the cold, his lips the same. Everything around them so white it makes his hair look dark.

“Alright,” Kyle says, lingering. “Well.”

“Well,” William echoes.

If Kyle kisses him William will kiss him back. He’ll kiss him back, the way Kyle’s been wanting, the way Kyle’s been kicking himself for imagining for a year, now, the way he’s been imagining anyways. He feels like he’s burning.

“Goodnight, William,” Kyle says, picking through the words one by one. They taste bitter on his tongue, even as they come out soft. He forces himself to turn, hands still in his pockets, to start his car, only William grabs his elbow before he can.

“Wait, please,” he says, like there was any chance of Kyle not listening.

Kyle watches William move his hand, watches him hold on to the end of Kyle’s scarf. Barely anything. He’s frowning, or as close as he ever gets to frowning, and Kyle wants to put his mouth on the crinkle in his brow, to smooth it out. Instead, he finds himself touching William’s forearm, this odd, loose grip.

William’s breath catches, audibly.

“Kyle,” he says, a question, like at the coffeeshop, only this time there’s nowhere for Kyle to suggest they go, no way to put this off like they’ve been doing.

Kyle swallows. “I liked talking with you,” he says, and watches William’s grip tighten on the end of his scarf, watches the look on his face settle into something certain, almost resolute, and then he’s looking up at Kyle, blinking against the snow as it falls, dotting flakes in his eyelashes, on the tip of his nose, and he’s just- he’s the best thing Kyle’s ever seen.

“Kiss me,” he says, simple, and Kyle does.

He’s careful about it, more careful than he’s been in his life. More than he has to be, probably, because William’s certainly not delicate, at least not physically; and he’s taller than most people Kyle’s kissed, enough that, when Kyle breaks off, they can keep their foreheads touching, can stay bent close to each other.

There’s one heartbeat, then another. A car drives past, slow, slow.

“Was that-” Kyle starts, and doesn’t finish, because William’s kissing him again, tugging on Kyle’s scarf to yank him in, hard, and any thought of being careful flies out of Kyle’s mind, gone like _that_ , because William’s practically _climbing_ him right out here in the street, his mouth hungry on Kyle’s, searching; he stumbles backwards so that Kyle has to plant a hand on the frosted-over car window to catch himself, ends up with William pinned between him and the glass.

It’s exactly as pent-up as it felt, a shaken can fizzing over into teeth tugging at lips, into Kyle leaning into William’s space, chasing the little noises that William makes, like gasps, and he’s so absurdly aware of the feeling of William’s hands in his mittens, soft on Kyle’s neck, his jaw, grasping him close like a desperate thing.

“Come back to my place,” William says raggedly when they have to pause for breath, and Kyle feels legitimately dizzy with the possibilities of that, with just how badly he wants to make those possibilities a reality.

“That’s-” he pants, trying to collect himself. Mostly failing. “That would be a bad idea, maybe.”

“A good idea,” William croons, and he’s pecking these little kisses across Kyle’s face, landing on his mouth maybe only half the time, talking right up close, “The _best_ idea, Kyle, Kyle-”

Kyle kisses him again even as he’s shaking his head, breaks off messily, leaves William’s lips shiny-wet. “I want to do things properly,” he says, and makes himself take a step back onto the curb, head spinning. Do this right. They deserve to do this right, not- not rash. He’s not rash. The whole point of tonight, miserable failure that it was, was not being rash. “If we’re- if this is happening, I have to-” He catches his breath, his heart still hammering against his chest. “I need to be able to think.”

“You always think.”

“Not around you,” Kyle says, more honestly than he intends to, and William’s been pouting since Kyle stepped back but he visibly perks up now, like knowing that he renders Kyle’s judgement entirely non-functional is a point of pride for him.

Kyle’s so deeply fucking gone, here.

He ducks in and kisses William again, hard, then pulls back before William can pull him in again. They’re in public. In public, in the middle of Toronto.

“I meant it,” Kyle says, because it feels important. “I did- I _do_ , I like talking with you.”

“I know you do,” William says, eyes still shut as he sways a little in place. “You’re obvious.”

Kyle reaches up and touches William’s face, can’t tell if his cheek is cold or if its his own fingertips. William leans into the touch, finally opens his eyes as Kyle drops his hand, and it’s like watching him wake up, the way he blinks a few times before edging himself out of the space between Kyle and the car.

They stand a couple of feet apart on the sidewalk. Everything has changed. It feels the same as ever, Kyle wanting and wanting him.

“Goodnight,” Kyle says again, and the corner of William’s mouth quirks up, this little smile that he only does when he’s happy, really truly happy.

“Goodnight,” William says, and Kyle turns to get into his car, and when he looks out the window again, William’s gone, just footprints left.

Kyle touches his mouth. He can see his breath even in his car, the heat not on yet.

He thinks- it’s a problem, usually, waiting so long for something and building it up and up so that the reality tends not to live up to the expectation.

This was better. This-

Kyle laughs out loud, happy and terrified and full up of something he can’t name, and the laugh comes out like a gasp, and he can see that, too, crystallized in the air before disappearing to nothing.

\---

The good thing about all-nighters is that they make you feel productive, and Kyle needed that fairly desperately, last night.

The good thing about mornings is that they bring perspective, and Kyle watches the sun come up in his living room, watches it spread across his floor and across the dog-eared books and fourteen drafts of the pro and con lists he made, and he feels-

Not calm. The day he’s calm about William Nylander is the day he dies, probably.

But calm _er_. Calm-adjacent.

So: He prepares his coffee maker, texts William his address, and showers; has plenty of time to change into sweats without a hole in the thigh and enjoy three-quarters of a cup of coffee before there’s a knock at his door.

Kyle takes a deep breath, straightens the little bowl where he keeps his keys before opening the door. He’s got this. He has a plan, for this. A plan that, strictly speaking, does not involve him smiling huge and like an absolute dork the second that he sees William standing there, but it’s like- he’s _here_ , he’s real, last night was real.

“Oh,” William breathes, and he nearly even looks flustered, which would be a first, only Kyle doesn’t even get the chance to enjoy it, because he gets an armful of William, is getting kissed before he can say a single thing.

Kyle thinks, absently, as he slams the door shut behind William and William against the door, in that order, that he doesn’t mind interruptions, if they happen like this.

It’s the giddiness that Kyle didn’t allow himself last night, here in the privacy of his apartment where he can trail his hands up and down William’s back, can bite back a laugh at William’s hands immediately landing on Kyle’s ass, can focus on nothing else except making sure that William ends up as thoroughly kissed as possible.

“Nice place,” William pants as they stumble backwards through the kitchen.

Kyle really does laugh now, against him. “You didn’t even look.”

“Yeah,” William agrees, nonsensical, and gets his legs around Kyle’s waist once Kyle hoists him up onto the counter, sending this month’s National Geographic to the ground with a thud. Kyle can feel William getting hard against him, pushing his hips into Kyle’s with these unconscious little movements, and Kyle is seriously weighing the romantic and sanitary merits and drawbacks of kitchen sex when he remembers- plan, he had a plan.

“I have-” Kyle says before getting kissed again, and it’s got to be another full two minutes before he gets out, “I have rules, we need to discuss rules.”

“Sex rules?” William asks, all hopeful, and Kyle breaks out of his vise grip, stumbles back and presses himself into the cool steel of the refrigerator, lets it ground him.

“Rules-rules,” Kyle says, and William makes just the _most_ awful face, and Kyle’s grateful for it, because it lets him get enough of a grip to use his words like a real person.

“Okay,” Kyle says, with as much dignity as he can muster considering that his hair is sticking up like he just got electrocuted and his shirt is undoubtedly wrinkled beyond all hope and he’s definitely rocking a deeply obvious sweatpants boner. “Alright, so correct me if I’m wrong, but this isn’t just a sex thing, right?”

William nods, still perched on the countertop with his legs dangling down, his shirt rucked up at his hips. “Right.”

“Okay,” Kyle says again, and clears his throat. “Okay, so if we’re doing- this, in the context of our careers and the accompanying media attention and, like, people being assholes, I have some suggestions for ground rules. Your ideas are also welcome.”

“You’re so hot but so _boring_ ,” William informs him.

“Rule one,” Kyle carries on, undeterred. Mostly undeterred. William thinks he’s hot. “People can’t know.”

“I already told my brother and my big sister last night,” William says. “And I won’t lie to my parents.”

“Okay,” Kyle says, because that’s easy enough to amend. “People outside family.”

“Good,” William says. “And no posting pictures with me, I only like pictures when I say it’s okay.”

“Noted,” Kyle says, even though he sort of assumed that no pictures was kind of implicitly a requirement of the whole secret, illicit workplace romance thing. “Next rule, if this ever interferes with our ability to effectively do our jobs, we have to end it.”

William doesn’t even hesitate. “It won’t.”

“You can’t-”

“It won’t for me,” William cuts him off smoothly, sliding off the counter but not coming any closer. “Maybe I’m too distracting for you, though, I don’t know.”

“Funny.”

“Thank you,” William says, inclining his head, the picture of humble deference. “I also have a rule.”

“Please.” Kyle gestures for him to go ahead, and William looks up at him, firm.

“No acting like I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says. “Or like this is you, like, doing something to feel bad about.” He takes a step closer, puts himself within arms’ reach of Kyle as he counts his points on his fingers, one at a time. “I haven’t been a virgin since forever, the team’s invested way more in me than in you, and even if you turned evil and fucked up my entire career I’m still going to inherit millions of dollars. This isn’t scary, for me. I know what I want.”

He doesn’t leave any room for argument. Kyle can think of a few anyways. He doesn’t say any of them out loud. William knows what he’s doing. That much, Kyle doesn’t doubt. That’s- enough. Close.

“Tell me,” Kyle requests. “What you want.”

William rises up on his toes, just for a moment looking like he’s about to take flight. He gets the look on his face, the one like he’s about to say something in the middle of a coffee shop and blow up two years’ worth of not talking.

“I want us to stop doing rules and have sex already,” he says, blunt. He reaches out and tugs at the waistband of Kyle’s sweats, not down, but towards himself. Kyle goes. “I want for you to pull my hair while you kiss me and then for you to fuck me and after that we can nap together plus some cuddling, okay, Kyle?”

“Jesus,” Kyle chokes out, after a second. Maybe, like. Five.

Never. He’ll never be used to William’s brand of straightforwardness.

“ _Please_ ,” William says, and he sounds genuinely distressed, needing, pressing his hand under Kyle’s t-shirt, against his stomach. “I’ve been thinking about you every time I get off since I met you, do you know how long I’ve been wanting-”

Kyle cuts him off with a kiss, and this time they don’t stop, and if Kyle has his way they won’t be stopping for the foreseeable future, because this isn’t the kind of thing he’s going to get tired of anytime soon.

And-

“I, uh,” Kyle says, when they’re out of their clothes and William’s bracketed over him, grinding down against Kyle like he’s planning on being as good as his word, vis-à-vis fucking. “I’ve only done stuff with a man once,” Kyle says. “And it wasn’t- uh, what you said. Not to that extent.”

“Oh,” William says, and it’s enough to make him pause and tilt his head, all woodland creature-esque again. “That’s cute.”

Kyle splutters, indignant. “I’m not _cute_ ,” he says, deeply affronted.

“You are,” William says, clearly having far too much fun with this. “So cute always, with your glasses. It’s adorable.”

“No,” Kyle says. “No no, I’m objectively not the adorable one in this situation, William, you own _mittens_.”

“So- _so_ \- cute-” William punctuates himself with kisses all across Kyle’s nose. “You’re all bossy and in control and you don’t even know how gay sex works.”

“I know how gay sex works,” Kyle says flatly.

“Prove it,” William says, all cocky, and Kyle has a soft spot for occasional brattiness, sure, but relative inexperience aside, he’s certainly not any kind of novice, here, and like hell is that going to be the way they’re doing things.

He flips them over, ends up pinning William into the mattress. He uses his thumb to tilt Williams chin up to look at him; leaves his fingers pressed against William’s throat, enough to feel him swallow, hard.

“You want me to, huh?” Kyle asks, low.

William _whines_.

And-

For all William’s talk, for all _Kyle’s_ talk, the actual sex, once they get around to it, is tender like an exposed nerve, so careful Kyle kind of wants to laugh at himself for it. At both of them.

He’s always been better at showing feelings than at saying them, and he tries to do that, now, hopes that William gets the message, hopes their no-words secret language extends to this as well, to the way they fit together like something new and familiar all at once.

He’s inside William when he comes, hips stuttering into where William’s flush against him, and he doesn’t stop moving his hand until William’s coming too; and Kyle doesn’t stop there, either, disentangling himself from William and then kissing his way down William’s chest, his stomach, where Will’s come is drying sticky between them. When William realizes what he’s doing, he shivers under Kyle’s mouth, says, all breathy, “Ah, Kyle,” then something either gibberish or Swedish, Kyle’s not sure.

It’s slower than before, deeper, when they’re face to face again and William kisses him, this completely and utterly filthy kiss like he’s trying to taste himself on Kyle’s tongue, and then their foreheads are pressed together, they’re sharing air so that Kyle can feel when William’s breath shakes.

“I knew we would be good,” William says, almost a whisper. “But.”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Kyle understands anyways. It’s like- he feels crazy, sometimes, the way he gets obsessive about things without meaning to, like he’s always some shade of too much for everyone, except he thinks that William might be the same, or at least similar enough that Kyle’s going to have scratches on his back from where William was hanging onto him, and it’s like- it creeps up on Kyle slow, the realization that anyone else he’s ever with is going to be compared to this, to William, and without fail, they’re going to fall short.

Kyle likes him. Kyle really fucking likes this guy, so much.

The gravity of that fact and everything that goes along with it that Kyle doesn’t dare think, even to himself, is terrifying, so Kyle just leans in and presses one more kiss to William’s lips, then to the bridge of his nose, and then he tugs him into a hug.

William said he wanted cuddling. Kyle is being obliging. He will never, never admit otherwise.

“Tell me you like talking to me again,” William requests, a while later, and Kyle would probably give him the moon right now, if he asked for it, so he does as he’s told.

“I like talking to you,” Kyle says, trailing his fingers up and down William’s side, slow. He feels more than sees William’s chest moving as he breathes. In, then out. “I like listening to you talk,” Kyle continues, quiet. “I like being around you.” He lingers at William’s hip, rubs his thumb over the bone there. “I liked having sex with you.”

William hums contentedly, and it vibrates through Kyle’s body. “You can keep having sex with me,” he says. “You should. And being around me. And talking to me, and listening to me talk, and-”

“Okay,” Kyle says, before the feeling in his heart makes him say something too embarrassingly besotted to recover from.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

William lifts up just enough to press a kiss to Kyle’s bare skin, right over his heart, then snuggles up close again.

And-

The world shifts under Kyle’s feet, then. In his head. Everywhere, like something clicking into place. It feels right. Not like something to go to hell over. Maybe something worth the risk.

Kyle traces the shell of William’s ear. He’s exhausted, an extremely stressful all-nighter plus follow-up sex with an extremely high-energy athlete catching up to him all at once, but he can’t bring himself to close the curtains or close his eyes, not yet, not ‘til he’s memorized this the way he’s been wanting to, the way he finally can.

This, William curled up next to him, fitting like he belongs; the end of one thing and the start of another, is the kind of moment Kyle wants to remember.

**Author's Note:**

> \- alt title: william nylander’s noble quest to get dicked down by a hot nerd   
>  \- ...that could be a title for like half the fics in the william nylander tag huh


End file.
